They Had a Dream

ON MAY 10, ABC television correspondent Brit Hume pointed out on the evening news that President Clinton, in trouble with the voters, was on the road again, in Ohio. The President was shown in an auditorium talking about welfare reform, saying what he has already said many times: welfare as we know it should be ended. The audience duly applauded, as it always does on these occasions. In case we hadn’t been following the script, Hume jogged our memories. Talk of welfare reform is calculated to lift Clinton in the polls, he said. Since then, the politically opportune nature of Clinton’s interest in welfare has been widely noted.

One might conclude that welfare reform will soon be enacted. Plainly it is popular with the voters. Plainly Clinton knows that it is popular. But the conclusion of this article, to put it at the beginning, is that there is not likely to be any welfare reform in the Clinton Administration; certainly not the end of welfare as we know it.

TB

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Tom Bethell

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ON MAY 10, ABC television correspondent Brit Hume pointed out on the evening news that President Clinton, in trouble with the voters, was on the road again, in Ohio. The President was shown in an auditorium talking about welfare reform, saying what he has already said many times: welfare as we know it should be ended. The audience duly applauded, as it always does on these occasions. In case we hadn’t been following the script, Hume jogged our memories. Talk of welfare reform is calculated to lift Clinton in the polls, he said. Since then, the politically opportune nature of Clinton’s interest in welfare has been widely noted.

One might conclude that welfare reform will soon be enacted. Plainly it is popular with the voters. Plainly Clinton knows that it is popular. But the conclusion of this article, to put it at the beginning, is that there is not likely to be any welfare reform in the Clinton Administration; certainly not the end of welfare as we know it.